Banzai Pipeline
Heavy waves with a shallow, super sharp reef break. The Pipeline break is treacherous in Hawaii.
According to the great and powerful Wikipedia: "it got its name in December 1961, when surfing movie producer Bruce Brown was driving the North Shore with California surfers Phil Edwards and Mike Diffenderfer. Brown stopped at the then-unnamed site to film Edwards catching several waves. At the time, there was a construction project on an underground pipeline on adjacent Kamehameha Highway, and Diffenderfer made the suggestion to name the break "Pipeline". The name was first used in Brown's movie Surfing Hollow Days."
By the way, Surfing Hollow Days is highly recommended viewing material!
Here's a Hawaiian warrior, charging Pipeline with no fear in his eyes.
I've been thinking about the 60's and 70's Ed Roth and Roth industries T-shirts that my dad started buying for me as a kid and how that look definitely informed my decisions when drawing characters or even designing. For better or worse, I love drawing this way.
According to the great and powerful Wikipedia: "it got its name in December 1961, when surfing movie producer Bruce Brown was driving the North Shore with California surfers Phil Edwards and Mike Diffenderfer. Brown stopped at the then-unnamed site to film Edwards catching several waves. At the time, there was a construction project on an underground pipeline on adjacent Kamehameha Highway, and Diffenderfer made the suggestion to name the break "Pipeline". The name was first used in Brown's movie Surfing Hollow Days."
By the way, Surfing Hollow Days is highly recommended viewing material!
Here's a Hawaiian warrior, charging Pipeline with no fear in his eyes.
I've been thinking about the 60's and 70's Ed Roth and Roth industries T-shirts that my dad started buying for me as a kid and how that look definitely informed my decisions when drawing characters or even designing. For better or worse, I love drawing this way.
Mongo the front pushing freak
That being said, there is still one thing that pretty universally gets hate in the skateboarding world internationally: pushing mongo.
To push mongo, one must use their front foot to push themselves rather than their back foot. There are Youtube videos exemplifying the heinous behavior, websites devoted to hating on Mongs, and an overall bad attitude toward kids who prefer to skate this way.
I've heard all the arguments against pushing mongo my whole life but you know what? I just won't stop. I can easily go back and forth between standard and mongo but I always prefer to push mongo in general.
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available here!
To celebrate my terrible decision, I've made Mongo, the front-pushing freak. Now you too can celebrate your utterly horrible skateboarding with this mini print over at my Etsy.
Insert Chuck Norris joke
If you've never seen Lone Wolf McQuade, please treat yourself to the best Chuck Norris movie ever made. Lone Wolf gets buried alive in his awesome supercharged Dodge and has to escape. Look, I won't tell you what happens but the Dodge survives...
With all the Chuck Norris beard trivia flotsam floating around the internet over the past few years I wonder why this drawing hasn't already been made. Seems it wasn't and I needed to fill that gap- for you, the good people of the internet.
I bring you: Chuck Norris
With all the Chuck Norris beard trivia flotsam floating around the internet over the past few years I wonder why this drawing hasn't already been made. Seems it wasn't and I needed to fill that gap- for you, the good people of the internet.
I bring you: Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris prefers to fight like a man--with his hands. Yet his beard is a ruthless killer, bound by no code but BLOOD.
Jake the Snake Roberts
Here is another of my favorite wrestlers from childhood. Jake "the Snake" Roberts is the creator of the DDT (essentially, you grab a dude's head like you would for a suplex, and then proceed to plow it through the mat by dropping onto your own back while still holding said dude's head). He was always kind of scary and mysterious to me but not necessarily because of his snake Damien.
Browncoats brown
I've been doing fun little challenge on Instagram: geek photo a day
Follow all the fun photos people are posting by searching #geekphotoaday
Here was today's theme: Browncoat brown. If you're unfamiliar with the Browncoats, I suggest you buy a Firefly DVD or watch it on Netflix. Enjoy!
Follow all the fun photos people are posting by searching #geekphotoaday
Here was today's theme: Browncoat brown. If you're unfamiliar with the Browncoats, I suggest you buy a Firefly DVD or watch it on Netflix. Enjoy!
The foxes he's carrying are a nod to the show's abrupt cancellation.
Finished up an old sketch
Cleaned up that Undertaker sketch I posted a little while ago. I've decided I'd like to put together a character design portfolio. I'm not sure where that'll be hosted. Any ideas? I'm leaning toward my Behance portfolio but am open to suggestions.
Morning sketch
Morning sketch for a painting of my grandpa as a viking shot caller. Yeah, they had those. Still have major kinks to work out but the potential for goodness is there. See you soon!
Undertaker sketch
Here's a quick little sketch of the pro wrestler, the Undertaker. I hope to tune this and a few more of his "friends" up and update again soon.
the Undertaker is ©WWE
Swing your arms from side to side...
...c'mon it's time to go do the Mario!
Oh hey there, whatcha doooin'?
Anywho, I just painted the brothers Mario for PaletteSwap!
While painting this illustration, I was thinking a lot about what it would be like for two Brooklyn-based, Italian plumbers to get transported into the Mushroom Kingdom. These two guys (brothers) know nothing of the crazy, upside down world they've just found themselves in. There's evil mushrooms, dragons that fly in mechanical clown heads, and mutant fire-spitting plants- and the only thing to make it any better is all the gold lying (or floating) around. But there's no store to buy stuff, so you can't do anything with it! You just get to try again if you happen to fall into a bottomless pit. Yay you!
So in terms of the Mario brothers' posture, there's a bit of irritation and unhappiness there. I figure that my brothers and I would probably be pretty irritated with our new home rather than go around joyfully stomping the life out of evil mushroom people.
It's been a while since I made a painting for PaletteSwap (here is a link to my old PSwaps). This time I wanted to go for a classic! Super Mario World was and continues to be one of my favorite SNES games. I love so much about it: the explorable, ever changing world map, the secret ways of beating levels, the art and the adventure. I remember playing it with my own brothers and just poring over different ways of beating the levels...I played it consistently years later with my (now) wife. It's a go-to classic and I can't wait to play it with my kids. Although their built-in cranial micro processors may not be backwards compatible. Gaaahh technology...FOILING MY PLANS AGAIN!!
Ahem, sorry about that. Here's my PaletteSwap:
Oh hey there, whatcha doooin'?
Anywho, I just painted the brothers Mario for PaletteSwap!
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| Here's the uncropped version of the painting. |
So in terms of the Mario brothers' posture, there's a bit of irritation and unhappiness there. I figure that my brothers and I would probably be pretty irritated with our new home rather than go around joyfully stomping the life out of evil mushroom people.
It's been a while since I made a painting for PaletteSwap (here is a link to my old PSwaps). This time I wanted to go for a classic! Super Mario World was and continues to be one of my favorite SNES games. I love so much about it: the explorable, ever changing world map, the secret ways of beating levels, the art and the adventure. I remember playing it with my own brothers and just poring over different ways of beating the levels...I played it consistently years later with my (now) wife. It's a go-to classic and I can't wait to play it with my kids. Although their built-in cranial micro processors may not be backwards compatible. Gaaahh technology...FOILING MY PLANS AGAIN!!
Ahem, sorry about that. Here's my PaletteSwap:
I found a really nice, clean, high resolution image of the original SNES box sold in the states and mussed it up a little with the powers of Photoshop to give it an older feel. Enjoy!
Super Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka
Super Mario Bros. and all related material is copyright Nintendo
Some Etsy custom orders
I recently had a pretty cool Etsy order from a very cool girlfriend who has a very lucky boyfriend. She wanted to surprise her man for his birthday and she had seen an old wooden cutout of Randy Savage that I made long ago. Asking if I could make another AND a Ric Flair was like asking a if I'd like like another cinnamon roll cake for my birthday....yes I would like that very much thank you.
If you're wanting to order some custom wrestlers, why don't you head over to my Etsy and send me a conversation?
Process shots:
These are hand cut, hand painted, ready to be hung on the wall original pieces of art. They are painted on 1/4" birch panels and they're fun to have staring at you. Albeit, I only get to see them staring at me for a couple days before I send them off.
Kindergarten Cop Father's Day Greeting Card Now Available!
I'm just talking to a blinking cursor now. ...Kind of like Doogie Howser M.D. Ooooo NPH.
The one main difference between good ol' Doogie and I, is that he liked to make some kind of prolific statement about what he learned in that episode and all I'm going to do is talk about an abusive detective. An abusive detective that goes deep undercover as a kindergarten teacher to find a bad guy.
Honestly, I'm not even going to talk too much about the movie. If you haven't already seen Kindergarten Cop, words just won't do it justice. Seriously though, you should throw this on your Netflix, and get ready for some early '90s action-comedy featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger at his (some say) finest. It's also directed by Ivan Reitman, who made Ghostbusters!
There's a ton of sayings that would have worked well for this card, but for some reason my wife and I constantly say, "Who is your daddy, and what does he do?" to each other...in the most random situations possible. So, it just felt right. Also in the running were, "It's not a tumor!" and "I'm a cop, you idiot!" but I felt like the first one was too insensitive for a get well card and the second phrase would only pander to rude police officers. Sooooo...
Wait, maybe I'm missing a market here.
Anyway, Father's Day is coming up and since our beloved phrase involves the word "daddy", I figured this was a good fit. Plus, it's hilarious.
You can purchase this card for you dad here! I can also make 8x10" prints, but those are available upon custom request.
Love Cat
Oh hello there.
Sooooooo...my wife goes through this pretty much every day.
Sooooooo...my wife goes through this pretty much every day.
I hear about how the cat is constantly up in her business constantly so I thought I'd document it for posterity. Check out and follow my wife's blog to see what she was trying to work on!
Nerd Alert
Is it weird that I feel uncomfortable with everyone throwing around the "nerd" term? Allow me to explain: I don't mean that I'm uncomfortable because its really mean or derogatory. I guess I feel like I can't jump on board when people just add nerd after whatever thing they're obsessed about. ie: I'm a total _______nerd.
While that may be true in some cases, I feel like people are jumping on the nerd bandwagon. There are a lot of people around the old internet these days claiming nerd genes without really striving for that peak of isolated, obsessive, really-good-at-what-you-do nerdiness.
Look, I understand that there is a really solid philosophical argument for nerd-dom branching into every area of society but I don't think it applies when a person is only going half speed into their chosen nerd path. Ok, ok...I need to pipe down.
Ok, I'm piped. At any rate, I drew this guy and I love him. Thanks to the fantastic Mr. Frenden, that's Ray Frenden to you folks, and his marvelous brush pack for Photoshop, this little digital drawing was done in a jiffy.
Here's just a simple version of him. He's sad because he knows that people only spend an average of under 5 minutes looking at a given blog post per day. Stick around, maybe he'll cheer up.
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A little animation of how I worked it up with those Frenden brushes.
Maybe I'm a little bitter. I need to check that I think...
Ryu and his lil Hadoken
So it turns out that I really like making these. This one uses the original animation from Street Fighter 2 plus a couple in between frames for a better flow. It was hand drawn and animated in Photoshop CS5. I worked at 300 ppi at 800 pixels square and then shrunk it down when I was finished for ease of loading online. Hope you like it!
While you're at it, go on over to my Tumblr and "like" or reblog it. It's a good way to know if these are something that people would like me to keep posting or not.
Dragons on the move...
I was playing around today with the old NES sprite animations for Double Dragon. I used their funky, 3 frame walk cycle to create little cartoon guys. Who knew it was animated gif day?! The background was thrown together rather hurriedly so I may go back in and tune up the drawings while I fix the background. Then again, they may just stay like this as an excercise. Feel free to use them as avatars as long as you link back here or give me credit. :)
